Living in the jungle in Panama has been an adventure of its own. Out here, on our little island, we live completely off the grid. This means we survive off of rainwater catchment tanks and solar power. Each morning when we wake up, we are depending on God for both a rainy day and a sunny day.
In order to supply the staff and students with water, we ideally need rain every day or every other day to keep our water tanks full. These tanks provide the water that is needed for cooking, clean drinking water, bathing, toilet flushing, washing hands and dishes, brushing teeth, cleaning, and so on.
Laundry, however, is one of the only things that we don’t depend on our tanks for. Getting our clothes clean can be done in the nearby creek, which is about 2 feet deep but with a muddy bottom. Another option would be to take your clothes into town on our weekly Saturday grocery run to be laundered by a sweet Panamanian man named Don.
This past week, we had several days with no rain.
As our tanks began to get low, we took precautions by turning off the plumbing to the toilets and carrying water up from the creek for flushing. It is quite a hike to get water up to the house from the creek, but given the choice of a rough hike for flushing over no clean drinking water, the choice was simple.
Our team made a swift realization. We cannot make rain; that is quite clearly out of our own hands, but we know the one who could make rain: GOD.
Early on a Wednesday morning, we decided to pray and ask God to provide rain for us (as well as for the neighboring villages). We had been told that there was no rain on the forecast for the next several days, but we knew our God is bigger than any forecast.
We had barely spoken our prayers when the rain began to fall. It started raining that morning and did not stop. We were collecting water in every container and bucket we had; catching the surplus that was brought to us by God. It rained all day, until all of our tanks were full.
God had called us out to the jungle to bring the gospel. He tells us that He is our provider and that He knows exactly what we need. And this past Wednesday, He showed us that He is who He says He is: Our PROVIDER.
And we depend on God for all of this water and power simply so that we can continue to complete the call that God has brought us all out here for: to know God and to make Him known.
Emily West
April DTS Co-leader
YWAM Ships Kona
To read more about Jeff and Emily’s adventures, click here: Sailing West
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